What is the purpose of glory?
Readership: All
Theme: Glory
Length: 700 words
Reading Time: 3.5 minutes
Overview of This Month’s Theme
Originally, I had planned 3 posts on glory to sort out some issues of confusion on this topic. In response, a couple readers sent in submissions and I had some more ideas too. Then, commenter Excelsis suggested that this month’s theme should be about Glory. I thought this was a fantastic suggestion so I ran with it!
I also invited a number of co-bloggers and those who have contributed writings to the Christian Manosphere and/or Σ Frame in the past to write a short post on the topic of glory.
Here is a list of all the posts that appeared this month. Names of contributing authors are given in parentheses.
- Σ Frame (Jack): Glory (2023/3/1)
- Σ Frame (Anonymous contributor, Jack): Disrespecting the Lord (2023/3/3)
- Σ Frame (WhiteGuy1): Glorifying God in the Flesh (2023/3/6)
- Σ Frame (Red Pill Apostle): Glorifying God through Obedience (2023/3/8)
- Σ Frame (Jack): The TLDR on Suffering (2023/3/10)
- Σ Frame (Elspeth): The Glory of the Glory (2023/3/13)
- Σ Frame (Rowena): God’s Glory is Obstructed by Pride (2023/3/15)
- Σ Frame (Rock Kitaro): Glorifying God Through the Courage of Upholding His Moral Laws (2023/3/17)
- Σ Frame (Catacomb Resident): The Glorious Warlord (2023/3/20)
- Σ Frame (Oscar): Order Out of Chaos (2023/3/22)
- Σ Frame (Jack): God is Not Gentle (2023/3/24)
- Σ Frame (Readers’ commentaries, Jack): Drama and Glory (2023/3/25)
- Σ Frame (WhiteGuy1): Glorifying God through Spiritual Gifts (2023/3/27)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Glorifying God by Being Yourself (2023/3/29)
- Σ Frame (Jack): Concluding Statements on Glory (2023/3/31)
Pros
Throughout this month’s writings, we’ve identified many elements of that which glorifies God.
- A culture that is ordered in justice and the fear of God
- Being one’s self (in Christ), e.g. charisma, confidence, etc.
- Battle, Competition, Conflict, Opposition, etc., specifically overcoming these.
- Drama
- Drawing the Line on the Unacceptable
- Enjoyment; Joy
- Ethnic identification and affiliation (e.g. belonging, group loyalty, humility)
- Faithfulness
- Fearlessness; Overcoming Fear and Shame
- Fulfilling Purpose; Working heartily;
- Grace
- Honor, praise, or admiration.
- Justice
- Mercy
- Nations turning from Chaos → Tyranny → Faith
- Obedience to authority
- Playing a Role (c.f. an appeal to Mythos)
- Power; Military might; Martial prowess
- Raising the Bar on Commitment
- Righteousness
- Self-sacrifice
- Sexual Dimorphism (Masculinity vs. Femininity)
- Submission to Authority (e.g. Subutu, Wives*)
- Suffering
- Taking a stand
- Thankfulness; Having a grateful attitude;
- The insignificant, small, and sometimes shameful things of this world
- Creation; The wild and untamed natural world
- Using Earthly / Fleshly / Physical Gifts
- Using Spiritual Gifts to minister to others needs.
We glorify God when many of these elements are manifested in our own lives. Many stories of martyrs and saints have similar elements, and this is how they glorified God. We also glorify God whenever we share or hear these stories recounted.
Cons
We’ve also identified a few things which detract from the glory of God.
- Anger
- Bitterness; Joylessness
- Boasting
- Cowardice
- Denying the power of God, or attributing it to Satan.
- Dishonor; Shame
- Disrespect
- Faithlessness; Unbelief
- False Humility
- Fear
- Identity Politics
- Legalism; The “leaven of the Pharisees”
- Compromising for the sake of peace; Convergence; Ressentimenalism. The “leaven of Herod”
- Over-the-top or self-centered Drama
- Pride; Claiming self-sufficiency; Denying God’s providence.
- Rebellion
- Self-Pity
- Sin; Guilt; Unrighteousness
- Status Signaling
- Virtue Signaling
- Vain works of the flesh
Observations
This month, a number of topics came up as related to Glory, some of which I didn’t expect.
- The place of Humility.
- The purpose and role of Suffering.
- The Warlord archetype.
- “To whom much is given, much will be required.”
Overall, this series addressed some questions that may have been confusing or not well understood.
- Why dominant masculinity is glorifying.
- Why submissive femininity is glorifying.*
- Developing one’s natural abilities / gifts is one way a man can discover and establish a domain of authority and a sphere of influence.
- Man is the glory of God. The woman is the glory of the man.*
- The purpose of tyranny is to restore order after a time of chaos.
- We cannot know ourselves well unless we keep “looking in the mirror” (using the Biblical analogy), which means that we must continually be engaged in ministry.
In summary, I learned many things from this excursion and I found some of the implications to be rather intriguing. It is my hope that this month’s series has helped readers understand what it means to glorify God, such that they may identify the many ways they can do so in their daily lives, and have more confidence in doing so.
Related
* In Affirmative Action for Baby Makers (2020/12/14), Sharkly has outlined the basic set of traits that have gone missing from Femininity over the last several decades. Basically, Sharkly’s message is that a woman’s overriding purpose in life is to glorify her husband, which is an archetype of how Christians glorify God. This is a Truth that has been thoroughly denigrated and buried under all the lies of Feminism.
- Σ Frame: What is glorification? (2019/3/23)
Σ Frame 
Christ rules with a Rod of Iron. But Tyranny is fundamentally unjust by its very definition. When Christ conquers the Earth by force at his second coming.
He will be Just and fair in doing so. Justice never will exceed Lex Talonis. Both punishment and reward will never be excessive. But will always fit.
“In Qin China, two generals were late for a battle. Given that the penalty for being late for a government job was death, they decided to take their soldiers and start a rebellion to fight for their freedom, as the punishment for rebellion was also death.”
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My issue has never really been with understanding what it means to glorify God. This is not to say that I believe I have arrived at a fully formed view of it. It’s just not a super powerful curiosity for me.
The one that bothers me is that glorifying Him is apparently the reason for all of existence. That there is some purpose for all of this to have been created that I cannot understand, yet by virtue of the decision of my parents (and by extension God Himself), I am forced to participate in it without consulting my pre-existence self. Me, and all of the billions of people who came before me.
There was no easier way, that did not include war, starvation, child sacrifice, injustice, gratuitous pain and suffering, multiplied by all the souls ever created in the past present and future than the scheme we are all cogs in.
Therefore the answer is “glorify Him.”
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EoS,
This was the impetus that led me to decide on making this month’s theme about Glory. If it’s that important to God, and it is the primary reason for our existence, then it deserves more of our appreciation, attention, and understanding.
Upon the completion of this theme, I have come to see that challenges, overcoming oppositions, and yes, sufferings are an intrinsic part of glory. Perhaps the reason we fail to appreciate this is because we have a peculiar aversion to suffering and are prone to take on a defeatist attitude and to lapse into self-pity. If we open ourselves up to that realization, then the next step would be to accuse God as being cruel and unloving (from a human perspective). But we don’t do that because it’s easier to just ignore the whole shebang, indulge ourselves in a few sinful pleasures now and then to make things tolerable for ourselves (but worse for others), and trudge through life trying to make the best of it.
Think about it. If God saw it fitting to subject His only begotten Son to a cruel death on the cross, how can we as Christians expect God to treat us any differently? If God in His omniscience saw that His Son’s crucifixion and death is what would draw to His Son (and by extension Himself) all power, glory, and honor such to be The LORD of Lords, then if we are to share in such honor and glory, we should also be willing to endure sufferings. If we go down that narrow way of self-denial and suffering, then Christianity becomes sort of a masochistic religion (again, from a humanistic perspective). The thing that makes it NOT masochistic is that there is hope and a purpose behind it. But we don’t see that too well either.
Moreover, I have come to see that all of this pain and suffering glorifies God, although it is difficult for us to see it as glorious, since we are mere mortals stuck in the thick of it. We only see the bloody swords and severed limbs on a dark muddy battlefield. We don’t see the knights in shining armor riding on horseback with flags billowing in the wind under the sunlight. But one day, we shall.
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